


The lateness of the hour

by Snoozydog



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, Darkness, M/M, Mycroft Feels, Only Sherlock knows what Sherlock truly feels, POV Mycroft Holmes, Sadness, Secrets, Unrequited Love, lost opportunities, running out of time, supressed feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 21:29:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20453846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Snoozydog/pseuds/Snoozydog
Summary: Mycroft receives an unexpected guest in the middle of the night, as well as some devastating revelations.





	The lateness of the hour

**Author's Note:**

> I guess this is a bit "dark" so be aware, or at least angsty.

He woke from the present sound of thunder rolling in through the slightly open window and opened his eyes slowly to navigate his surroundings and the source of the sound despite fully recognising it. He normally didn’t feel the presence of bad weather like he did when sleeping in the country house and any excuse for not immediately catching up to the familiar sound was valid as far as he was concerned.   
When his mind was sufficiently awake, his eyes immediately roamed the darkness of the room for the familiar form of his brother and a very well-acquainted feeling of nervousness hit him when failing to locate him.   
It was habitual, that feeling had been with him since they were children and he doubted it would ever go away, even if a rational part of him argued that it was far too maudlin to be harbouring irrational sentiment like that. 

The fact that he knew Sherlock was in the house was instinctual although he had no clear evidence to confirm it. It was the sense of a presence that made itself known despite Sherlock not having presented himself in his actual form yet.

Mycroft rose from his bed and went over to the window where dark clouds were implementing the feeling of doom that lay over the place, accompanied by thunder that was much closer than he had predicted. Suddenly lightning flashed across the early morning sky and the ominous rumbling followed shortly after.

He wondered if he should unplug his cell phone from its charger despite knowing that his brother would scoff at him for even considering it. 

Well, Sherlock wasn’t here to see him do it, so resolutely Mycroft stepped over to his nightstand and pulled out the charger from the socket in the wall next to it.

He tried listening to sounds while standing with his phone in his hand, the charger cord dangling from it like a limp tape worm. He laid it carefully on the now empty bed and then stepped out into the dark hallway. 

The house was eerily quiet. 

He had never quite settled here, and he didn’t spend much time in the house, preferring the home he had in the city. But this was the ancestral pile of bricks after all, it needed to be looked after occasionally and as he was the only one willing to take that responsibility, he made the effort to visit the place every now and then.

If he had been like everyone else, he would probably have settled here with a family of his own eventually. A spouse and a couple of children, perhaps even a cat.   
A dog would have been the choice if Sherlock had been the one in charge, but Mycroft preferred cats.   
They were selfish and independent and cared mostly for themselves without much need for human care.   
Cats were like his brother basically.   
Most of all, they didn’t need nor ask anything from him. 

Also very much like his brother. 

Mercurial and stubborn and marching to no one else’s drum but his own, that wayward little brother of his. 

Mycroft walked through the dark hallway and then down the stairs.

As expected, the door to the library was open but there was no light on.   
That meant nothing of course. Sherlock would be there.

As Mycroft stepped over the threshold, it took a second for his eyes to find his target.

Crawled up against the window, very much like the imaginary cat of Mycroft’s imaginary family, if he had been born a different person with other dreams and aspirations, Sherlock presented a black silhouette, features not discernible, the riot of curls sticking up like a strange-looking crown on top of a thin creature draped in a silk robe and nothing else. The amber glow of a cigarette butt was the only telling sign that he was in fact awake. Knowing Sherlock the way he did, his brother could very well have been asleep sitting up, pressed up against the windowpane.

As Mycroft softly entered the room, not bothering to switch on the light, feeling a comfort in being shrouded in darkness and shadows, he heard his ow voice speak in a strangely quiet voice despite the fact that his heart was beating fast and erratic in its ribcage. 

“I thought you quit smoking.”

Sherlock’s voice came flowing through the darkness like a velvet mist, the familiar timbre pulling at feelings deeply hidden inside of Mycroft.   
A familiar longing for something he couldn’t quite describe. Maybe it was the house that made him sentimental, these weren’t emotions he normally allowed himself to dwell on.

“You know very well I didn’t.” Sherlock sounded toneless when he spoke, one couldn’t tell if he was tired of the usual nagging or simply answering a question they both already knew the answer to.

“Well, I had hoped then.”

Mycroft trusted that he had managed the right amount of condescension. It wouldn’t do to let the opportunity to show his displeasure at his little brother’s deplorable smoking habits slip by, and at the same time he didn’t want to come off as too stern when he knew very well that there were other, far more undesirable habits he brother could have chosen instead. In comparison, a cigarette or two was nothing.

“Whatever gave you that idea?” Sherlock said, a hint of questioning in his voice.

“The good doctor’s influence...”

“...Is nothing but advice I ignore the way I do everything that I don’t agree with,” Sherlock interrupted. They had engaged in this conversation many times over the years, it never resulted in a different outcome. “I know a cigarette is cancer in the shape of a white paper stick, I’m not stupid, Mycroft. And don’t pretend you never said it, because I heard you plenty of times growing up. Besides...” Mycroft could hear his brother scoff in the dark, “..._good doctor_? As if you like him even the tiniest bit.”

_Clearly on edge_, Mycroft surmised and quietly sat down in one of the wing-backed chairs.   
It wasn’t particularly chilly but he felt uncomfortably exposed and drew his own night gown closer around himself. He had a pyjama underneath as well, he was properly shielded from any draft or cold in the house and yet it didn’t feel like it. 

Sherlock had nothing underneath his dressing gown, Mycroft was well aware, despite the fact that it was too dark to truly see. 

That Sherlock was so scantily dressed didn’t necessarily mean that he had intended to sleep anytime during the night, sometimes he simply got undressed for the same reason that he put his suit and tight shirts on, because it was what he felt like doing in that specific moment. There was never any true intent behind such actions and therefor uncomfortably unpredictable, like most things concerning Sherlock and his mercurial moods.  
Mycroft had never managed to predict what his brother would do next and it simultaneously vexed him as well as fascinated him.

None the less, Mycroft never could resist the temptation to probe deeper.

“What’s keeping you up, brother dear? I’m not going to be naïve enough to think that the weather woke you, you’ve clearly not slept at all.”

“But it’s obvious you did and quite soundly by the rumpled look of your hair and pyjamas, until you woke up rather abruptly. Still afraid of thunder and lightning after all these years, Mycroft?”

There wasn’t any ridicule in what he said, it wasn’t even a real question because they both knew the answer.   
Mycroft had always had a childish fear of the powers of nature, despite never having been the victim of anything more dramatic than a bout of hail during a summer holiday they had spent in France when he was 14 and he had not been quick enough to run for cover. It had been a very unpleasant and painful experience but not even remotely dangerous and yet it had scared him enough to fear all dramatic changes in weather for years to come. 

It wasn’t even because of the darkness, Mycroft wasn’t afraid of the dark, he thrived in it, skulking in the shadows. 

No, it was the helplessness he felt about something he was unable to control.

Instead of answering, Mycroft wanted to focus on why Sherlock was up at this hour, and why he was here, in their old family house. Not that it was anything unusual for his brother to be awake at night, Sherlock was more a nocturnal being than a creature of the day, thriving in the solitude of the hours when everyone else was asleep, a time which left the rest of the world for him to play with as he chose. 

But where his brother enjoyed the solitude of no one else interfering in his activities, Mycroft enjoyed the presence of mankind as pieces on a chess board, for him to move about as he pleased, creating intricate games that he was the only one clever enough to fully grasp.   
But he had no interest in who those people truly were, they were of no interest at all, whereas Sherlock liked to play his “deduction games”, probing so deep it was practically vivisection when he opened his mouth and tore peoples hidden secrets apart. He wanted to reveal, when Mycroft wanted to hide, he thrived in secrecy while Sherlock wanted to expose. They never managed to understand the other’s point of view.

“Isn’t John wondering where you are?”

Sherlock sighed and put out the cigarette, grinding the stump against the windowpane. It would leave a mark to go with all the other marks he had created around the house. It annoyed Mycroft, but not enough to bother with a sermon, not at this hour.

It became quiet for a while, long enough for Mycroft to begin to wonder if his question was going to remain unanswered.

“He thinks I’ve left for a case,” Sherlock’s voice eventually came drifting through the dark. From the sound of it, he was thinking about something else.

“And why did you tell him that?” Mycroft said, because coming here surely didn’t constitute as leaving for a case. A case of what? 

But to his surprise, Sherlock gave a truthful sounding answer.

“Because, strictly speaking, it isn’t wrong. I’m leaving.”

“Oh. Where to?” Mycroft feigned a curiosity he wasnt really feeling. His brother always tended to be more dramatic than any occasion required and the situation was surely no different tonight.

“Case,” was the short answer.

God lord, he was in that obstinate mood apparently, the mood where he was playing difficult just out pure spite. Mycroft didn’t like it, it always made for a tiresome conversation and he was far too tired to indulge in one of those at this hour. 

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

This earned him an immediate whiplash response.

“That’s because I don’t see the reason for you to know the answer. Don’t get sloppy with me, big brother. That is what you are after all - _Big brother_, in every sense of the word, from your physical shape to the blood bond we share and not least of all, in the literal sense. You have your spy gear still operating, I’m sure you can turn to those for an answer more to your liking.”

Mycroft swallowed the barb, it wasn’t harsh enough to bother with retaliation. He found himself too mellow at the moment and he had other worries on his mind.

“I thought you hated the fact that I keep an eye on you,” he said instead.

“I do. But if it relieves me from the chore of having to answer your inane questions. I would rather you made a go of figuring it out yourself with the aid of your cameras, than pester me with your inquisitive questions.”

There was something elusive about the tone, he clearly didn’t want to talk about it, but he had showed up here after all. Why was that?

Suddenly a cold grip wrapped itself around Mycroft’s heart and the grim squeeze of it almost made him stop breathing for a second. 

“Are you in some sort of trouble?”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he knew it was too late. 

Sherlock slid down from the windowpane, wrapped his billowing night gown around his slim frame as he moved across the room, past Mycroft, towards the door. He looked like a spectre, haughty and surprisingly majestic despite his lack of proper attire, but wasn’t that always the case, Mycroft thought with a sting of envy. Sherlock had perfected that act years ago, gliding through their childhood home like the queen of Sheba in a way that Mycroft had never been able to emulate, even if he officially never would deign to try it. 

The point was, whatever sliver of a chance he had been offered to probe deeper into the reason for his brother’s presence was now gone, the door firmly shut and Sherlock about to walk away without any further answers to the many questions that were beginning to mount inside of him. Mycroft cursed his dulled senses, not living up to their usual standard because of the late hour, his abrupt awakening and the storm whipping up in intensity outside.

But recognising the moment for having been missed, all he could do was watch Sherlock quietly slip out through the door and disappear.

Outside, the storm was increasing in force, and lightning was now crossing the night sky in an intricate pattern while it rumbled ominously in the background. Mycroft felt the familiar uneasiness unfurl inside of him and he felt a strong wish to follow his brother through the library door to wherever he was heading.   
But there would always be that final barrier between them, that unmentionable thing that remained unspoken between them but always was there, festering.   
Not exactly growing in intensity but still making itself known, poking at Mycroft’s senses whenever having anything to do with his brother, whether it was actually meeting him or merely thinking about him. 

Mycroft had never figured out if Sherlock was aware of it, but certain instances in the past suggested it. 

If he did, he had never exposed anything the way he did with everything else he encountered, he had never dragged it out into the shameful light, revealed Mycroft’s biggest weakness and that fact alone spoke against Sherlock actually knowing anything. 

But at other times Mycroft could have sworn that his brother was aware of his secret.

The years had gone by and nothing had changed. Mycroft’s feelings had never diminished or changed in nature despite never getting any sort of nurture or opportunity to develop. Quite the contrary, he had tried quenching them, the urges, and outwardly he thought he made a rather good job of it.   
But inside, it still was and would remain, a turmoil. 

Sherlock was right in saying that Mycroft didn’t like John.

The doctor had been sniffing too eagerly around his little brother less than a month in to their shared cohabitation and even if Sherlock was an adult and perfectly capable of either rebuffing or encouraging said interest, it made a sting of insistent bile make itself known inside of Mycroft whenever he was forced to witness it.

Oh, the doctor was hiding it as well as he could possibly manage, but was of course fooling no one. 

They all knew. 

That nutty old lady that insisted that she was only renting out her flat to them but almost bent herself backwards in her efforts to help them, well, _mostly _Sherlock, with every menial little task that had to do with everything from housekeeping to laundry and keeping them at least remotely fed - she definitely knew, had seen it from the very beginning. 

But there were others as well. 

The detective inspector that employed Sherlock on at least a third of his cases, he saw it too, even if he had the good tact of not uttering a single word about it openly. 

The girl who worked in the morgue and perhaps had them all beaten with her larger than life infatuation with the elusive Sherlock Holmes, she knew as well.   
But somehow she had managed to convince herself that John Watson wasn’t a threat to her in the love department, because any day now Sherlock would see her for the person she truly was and reciprocate those delicate feelings she felt for him, like a precious little baby bird she held with quivering hands close to her chest, for everyone to see and pity her for. 

Even Anthea who cared nothing for neither Sherlock nor John Watson, had spotted it quickly enough and tutted her head disapprovingly. She thought the notion of love silly and a huge waste of both time and energy. Mycroft would readily agree with her, it caused nothing but ache and sorrow and was a constant distraction when a person could have spent his time more wisely on more important matters than pining for another human being.   
But who was he to say anything, when he couldn’t keep his own feeling properly in check?

Even Sherlock himself knew how John felt about him.

And that was the most interesting part. 

Because at first it had been fascinating to see what he would do with that information. Sherlock had a slight reputation of exploiting people’s weaknesses in that regard, the girl in the morgue being a good case in point, but it had turned out that Sherlock had valued John enough to do nothing. 

Instead he had taken the stance of pretending that things were they way John himself pretended things to be between them and officially they were nothing more than two flatmates that solved crimes together and shared the rent. Friendship was perhaps a good term for it as well, but it had never been addressed openly and Mycroft wasn’t interested in labelling things either, if his brother wasn’t keen on it.

But facts were facts and John Watson was a man who had more than a soft spot for his flatmate and therefor, Mycroft didn’t like him.

It was basically based on jealousy and worry that things would one day progress between the doctor and Sherlock.   
Mycroft resented the fact that he was so weak as to succumb to such childish feelings. Especially as he had no valid reason to feel that way. 

A brother shouldn’t really bother with if his younger sibling decided to embark on a sexual and/or romantic relationship with another person, especially when that other person was someone like Doctor Watson, a slightly flawed man with some troublesome baggage but essentially kind-hearted and easy. In reality, there could scarcely have been a more suitable candidate for Sherlock, especially since he was proving to have a good influence on Mycroft’s reckless brother, at least to some extent. 

But feelings could not to be ruled over, not even by someone like Mycroft with all his infinite influence and power, and no matter how good John looked on paper, Mycroft couldn’t help but resent the man for having caught Sherlock’s fancy to such an extent that he was willing to share a huge part of his life with him, in almost every aspect except the romantic one. 

Feeling unusually self-pitying in a way that he rarely allowed himself to feel, Mycroft decided to go back to his bedroom and try to get some sleep, ignoring the way the sky was flashing from lightning and the way his stomach nervously fluttered at the thought of the storm raging on outside. 

If he put ear plugs on and closed his eyes, things would be fine. They always were alright again by morning. 

Just turn a blind eye and a deaf ear and he could continue pretending that things were just like they always had been and would continue to be, as long as he didn’t try looking too closely or listening to the things he didn’t want to hear. 

As he was about to slip back under the covers, he caught sight of his phone, still on the duvet where he had left it. He stretched out his right hand to remove it, put it back on the nightstand again, even if he wouldn’t plug the charger back into the socket as long as the storm was causing lightning to flash across the sky.

When he picked it up, he noticed that the screen blinked with an incoming message that must have come when he had been in the library.

He let his index finger glide across the screen to reveal that the message was a missed call that had gone to voice mail. 

03:43 the time on the screen announced but it wasn’t unusual for him to receive phone calls as well as messages at all hours of the day so it truly was of no consequence what the time really was.

He pressed the button so the voice mail could be played out to him, lifting the phone up to his ear while he sat down by the side of the bed.

“You have one message. The call was received at 03:38 am.”

Biiip.

“...Sir, it’s Anthea here. I’m afraid I have some bad news. It’s about your brother..."

The house squeaked and moaned from the force of the storm outside and Mycroft felt that cold grip of fear close around his heart once more as he listened to Anthea’s voice talking with trepidation and uncertainty, tinged with a bottomless sorrow he had never heard her speak in before, as she told him the news that made him gasp for air as the words developed into a blur of sentences he could no longer grasp the meaning of.

“...it happened quickly. Just straight through the head. He never even felt any pain, so there is some comfort in that...”

Mycroft thought of the silhouette of his brother against the dark window in the library. He had never seen his face properly.

“...the police are out there looking of course, as well as our own men. He won’t manage to get far...”

Mycroft closed his eyes as the grip of his hand loosened around the cell phone and it slid down to the floor, next to his feet. It hit the thick carpet with nothing more than a soft thud.

_“Are you in some sort of trouble?”_ he had asked less than ten minutes ago and he had sensed that the question had come too late. Now, everything was beyond salvation.

He stared out into the darkness and the emptiness of the room, well aware that the rest of the house was empty as well, just as it had been when he had entered it this afternoon. He was all alone now.


End file.
